The Wandering Drunkard
by She Ain't No Blondie
Summary: After ten years of travelling, Alistair finds himself in the very first place he left behind. And there’s someone waiting for him.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Wandering Drunkard

**Summary: **After ten years of travelling, Alistair finds himself in the very first place he left behind. And there's someone waiting for him.

**Spoilers: ** End game stuff, so if you're surprised there are multiple endings you should consider yourself warned.

**Notes:** Another in the series of _what ifs_.

*****

Another doomed soul come to drown their sorrows here, I see?

--Bella from Redcliffe

*

**Fate**: (_noun_) 1. something that unavoidably befalls a person; 2. the cause for Alistair's [bad] luck.

*

He didn't want to come back to Denerim, but when you do nothing but travel for ten years you eventually end up where you started.

The Gnawed Noble Tavern was exactly how he remembered it: noble people doing seedy things behind doors. But the bartender was a lot friendlier, and the drinks kept coming as long as he _hinted_ he had gold in his pocket (which he didn't).

"You know—you know who you look like," the bartender said after the fifth round. "Well, if you didn't quite have the beard."

The drunk next to Alistair burped appreciatively.

"Like old King Cailan," the bartended said. "Yeah, a little…maybe if you squinted. Squint for me."

Alistair obliged.

The bartender shrugged. "Eh, maybe not." He wiped at a glass thoughtfully. "Poor Cailan, died at Ostagar, did y'know?"

Alistair nodded.

"Queen Anora has been ruling for almost ten years now, the bitch," the bartender whispered. "But you didn't hear that from me, eh?" A suspicious pause. "Now where exactly did you say you were from?"

"Orlais," Alistair muttered, even though the accent was not there.

The bartender nodded. "Don't get much of your kind around here, Orlesians." The glass was looking much cleaner than its mates. "There's a food shortage, dunno if you heard. It's getting pretty bad. Not for me, o'course, means I can charge extra, but…the elves, most of them have run off."

Alistair shrugged. "Hard times have fallen on Ferelden," he said.

"Aye, if that's true," the bartender agreed. "Now, my friend, I'll have to charge you for those drinks. Care for one more for the road?"

Alistair shook his head. Despite all this time he had never really cared much for liquor, and the type in Denerim was nothing more than fermented Mabari piss. He reached for his pouch for his carefully earned silver, and threw it at the bartender.

"Ya better have something else, son," the man said, unimpressed.

Alistair rolled his eyes. Back in the day he would have waved his sword menacingly, but he had lost that in a tavern down south. Instead he reached for the pendant around his neck. "There, rob me blind why don't you," he muttered.

The bartender inspected it carefully. "You steal this off a body?" he asked, suspiciously.

"Now, why would you say that?" Alistair asked. He got up, and all the alcohol suddenly rushed to his head. Ah, he loved the buzz of sweet intoxication.

"This is a Grey Warden seal, lad. They don't just give these away, y'know," the bartender said.

Alistair shrugged. "They do when they're dead."

The Denerim air did not help Alistair snap back to attention. Instead the air was thick with decay, and most of the street was filled with hungry bodies hoping to scare a coin or two off the wealthier drunks heading home.

Alistair stumbled his way past the needy hands, wondering where exactly he would go to sleep. He didn't quite have the money to stay at the Tavern, and he doubted the Pearl would be pleased to take him in. Their rates had gone up with the hunger strike, where a good slab of steak was at a better premium than Sanga's whores.

It had been ten years since he had walked out on the Grey Wardens. Ten years since the archdemon had been slayed, and Loghain…well, Loghain had died an _honorable_ _death_. The thought made Alistair's brain sizzle.

"Ser, can ya spare a coin?"

Alistair blinked; the beggar could not have been older than ten. "Sorry, kid," he grumbled.

He was walking down a neighborhood, which looked just as dark and abandoned as the rest of Denerim. It had not been the first time he had heard of ill words towards Anora's reign. What had started out as a blissful queenship quickly became an unexpected tyranny once the food shortage had threatened nobles and peasants alike.

Alistair groaned. The alcohol was making its way around his brain, squeezing it like a grapefruit. He sat down, and realized he had chosen a puddle as his location for tonight. Well, maybe ten years was enough time to have lived. Death to cold and hunger seemed like a pleasant way to go.

"You're smelly."

Alistair looked up into a pair of dark eyes. It wasn't the beggar—a girl, Alistair thought, although too young for him to really care.

"What are you doing there?"

She was also _annoying_, and Alistair grunted at her, hoping "crazy drunk man" was on her list of fears.

"Humans aren't allowed in here," she continued, unfazed.

Alistair looked around. While Denerim was certainly in no state of beauty, this neighborhood looked especially rundown.

Ah, he must have stumbled his way into the _alienage_. Yippie.

"Don't you have parents?" he muttered.

"Of course, don't you?" the girl answered.

"No," said Alistair. "I was raised by a pack of wolves."

The girl rolled her eyes. "My daddy told me that, too. Maybe you're brothers."

Alistair squinted. She was definitely elf, although she looked healthier than most of the other elves he had seen. And she was definitely a lot snippier than the lot of them.

"Isn't it past your bed time?" he tried.

"I'm practicing." There was a pause as Alistair wondered if this was the part where he suddenly got murdered by a gang of robust elf children. "I'm trying to sneak out without my parents noticing," she added.

"Ah, well…that doesn't sound very…." Alistair faltered, because he didn't really care anymore.

The girl stared at him, curiously. "My name is Wynnifred," she offered.

"Alistair," he said, in return.

And then there was a light turned on in a house across from them, and the door opened, and Alistair's vision had already gone blurry with sleep and cheap beer.

"Wynn, what are you doing," a voice, male, with a better accent than Alistair had tried.

"I'm helping this smelly man, papa," Wynnifred answered. She poked him. "I think he died, though."

Alistair was aware of a male elf approaching him carefully. He felt drunk but not entirely stupid, and he could catch the glint of a dagger in the man's belt.

"I think you need to go back inside, yes?" the male said, turning his daughter back in the direction of the house.

"But, _papa_, Alistair was also raised by wolves."

And then Alistair was aware that he was being held up, and his eyes tried to focus on the person in front of him. His vision was hazy and his brain felt like it was leaking out of his nose.

"Ah, Alistair, it seems you have returned to us," the elf said.

"Ffffrrek orrf, Zevran," Alistair mumbled, and then passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes:** Thank you for all the reviews. They were really great to read! I definitely think it was ridiculous to lose Alistair; it made no sense whatsoever, for one. You get Loghain, but lose Alistair, so then you're down to the same number of archdemon bait in the first place.

*

I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.

--Herb Caen

*

If Fate was a person, Alistair was pretty sure she was having a field day.

He had been around the world, always making sure to keep a perfectly good distance from any Grey Warden, and then, for some unknown reason—

Wynnifred never stopped _talking_.

She came into the room, balancing a large bucket, a couple of sponges, and something that looked suspiciously like soap. "Papa says you need a bath before mother comes home," she chirped.

Alistair eyed the water with disdain. "Your father… is Zevran, right? I wasn't hallucinating."

Wynnifred straightened herself proudly. "My father is Zevran Aranai of Antiva, personal guard of Avery Tabris."

Alistair blinked. "Tabris, the Grey Warden?" he asked.

Wynnifred nodded vigorously. "My mother."

_Of course_. Fate, you bitter woman. "Y-your mother," Alistair echoed. He stared at the soap, which looked guilty. "Wait, Tabris and Zevran they… consummated…"

"What's consummated?" Wynnifred asked.

There was a knock and the door, and, with the same grace Alistair remembered, Zevran entered.

"Papa, what's consummated?" Wynnifred said.

Zevran raised an eyebrow and chuckled. "I think it's your bed time, Wynn," he said, nudging the girl towards the door.

"But mother isn't home yet," Wynnifred protested.

"She'll be home soon, and… trust me, you'll hear get back."

Alistair watched with disturbed fascination. It was like…like some alternate universe where Zevran actually had the potential to be a father and not… you know, _kill_ things.

"Forgive Wynn, she's rather like… her mother," Zevran said. He looked at the untouched water. "Go ahead, Alistair, wash yourself. I assure you it's nothing I haven't seen before."

There, right _there_, that same lecherous grin Alistair was familiar with.

"What—why—how—" Alistair wasn't sure how to begin. "What are you _doing_ here?" he settled for.

Zevran chuckled. "The same could be asked of you, Alistair. We are here because Anora isn't being as…courteous as she could be to the alienage, and Shianni requested Avery's assistance," he said. "Naturally, I am along to ensure that my wife doesn't bite off more than she can chew with Ferelden's royalty, and Wynn… well, she's hard to leave with others."

"_Wife_?" echoed Alistair. "How old is she…Wynnifred, I mean."

"Just turned eight," Zevran said, and Alistair could see the pride in his face. "Rest assure, dear Alistair, she's not _yours_."

"N-no, that's not—" Alistair felt himself get flustered. "So where is Avery? Guess I should congratulate her on her family."

There was a pause in the room, and Alistair could tell that he wasn't really welcome. Zevran might be smiling and laughing, and he could fool himself into thinking it was like he never left, but Alistair _knew_ that wasn't true.

"I hear you were raised by wolves," he offered, weakly.

Zevran grinned. "Avery does not believe that it is appropriate for Wynn to know I was raised by whores. But I tell her, 'They were Antivan whores, much better than Denerim ones.' She does not agree."

Alistair felt his stomach tighten. He had walked out on Avery, left her to deal with the Darkspawn and the archdemon, and now…now she had a _family_, albeit a rather strange one.

_Don't forget, she chose Loghain_, a voice peaked in his head.

"Perhaps I should go," Alistair said. "I've overstayed my welcome, and I have…things to attend to. Guinea pigs, yeah. Guinea pig farmer, that's me." He laughed as Zevran raised an eyebrow. "Only thing failed half-templars are good for."

"We tried to find you, Alistair," Zevran said. "Well, Avery did. After the battle, we hadn't even finished burying all the dead, and she set off on a mission to find you."

"She let _Loghain_ back—"

"That is not my problem. You Grey Wardens, that is between you two, but she went after _you_. Her wounds hadn't healed, she was stubborn. I followed her half around the world before she was called back to build up the Grey Wardens," Zevran said, angrily. "I don't know…how _intimate_ you two were back then, we do not talk about it, but you owed her more than just walking away, no?"

"She could have had more pride than allowing that traitorous bastard to join our ranks," Alistair hissed.

Zevran glared at him. "_More pride_? You put a young woman as a leader to defend the world, back out of your royal duties, _your highness_, and then when she makes the tough decision to add another one to your mystical ranks, _you ran away_." Zevran laughed. "You forget everything she did for you Alistair—everything she did for all of us—and you so easily betray her."

"It wasn't easy for me, either, you know," snapped Alistair. "She was the first woman I ever _loved_, Zevran. We were the only two left, and I didn't know if I would survive the next battle, if she would survive. And she was willing to throw it all away for Loghain. _Do you know what he did_?"

Zevran moved forward, slamming his fist into Alistair's nose. "Loghain risked his life so that Avery would live. He may have done many wrong things, but if Avery lived then he paid his debt to the Grey Wardens. Would you have done the same, dear Alistair?"

"What do you mean risked his life?" Alistair said. He had not heard of Loghain saving Avery, only that the Teyr had died at the end of the battle.

Zevran froze on the spot, turning slightly towards the door. Alistair could hear the main door opening.

"Andraste's mercy, that queen has only gotten worse with her age," a female voice muttered from the hallway. "I swear, Zev, it's so tempting to just leave and let everything cave in on Anora and her stuffy nobles."

Zevran turned to Alistair, and hissed, "Be polite, Alistair, or you'll regret it. I promise you, I no longer fail at murdering Grey Wardens."

But then Avery was entering the room, looking slightly confused. Her eyes met Alistair's and widened, and she leapt into his arms, muttering something about years and intuition and cheese.

Then she smacked him.


End file.
